Women Push For Rights At Mosque

A small but highly visible movement is upsetting the traditions of Islam in America as some women push to be able to pray with the men, to lead prayer, and to be involved in mosque leadership.

A demonstration by a Muslim woman activist at a major LA mosque led to the story being highlighted in today's LA Times -- pretty savvy PR by the woman, Asra Nomani, who also happens to be promoting a book.

Reading the story, I was reminded by Jimmy Carter's departure from the Baptist church because he didn't like Paul preaching that women should be subservient to their husbands. Did he not read the next verses, which say men should die, as Christ did, for their wives? It's easy to suggest that women like Nomani are a lot like Carter, urging reform because they don't understand what's really going on.

It's also easy to want Islam to be punctured and beated by an aggressive reform movement, because it is the religion of our enemy.

So let the debate begin. It's healthy for a church, and the Imams of Islam certainly need to be shaken up some. But as a fundamenalist Christian who is comfortable with the roots of his religion, I worry about calls for Islam to go to its roots through reformation, because Islam's roots are not easy, or particularly good for this world.

Unlike Christianity, which liberated women, moving them forward in a world where they were little more than chattle, Islam kept them as chattle. And Islam preaches Jihad and martyrdom.

If that's the reality of the religion today, reform can't really move Islam backwards. So let the reform effort begin.